Freedom

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This page is for quotes about Freedom

See also Liberty

Contents

[edit] Sourced

  • True freedom is not a freedom of choice made from a safe distance, like choosing between a strawberry cake or a chocolate cake; true freedom overlaps with necessity, one makes a truly free choice when one's choice puts at stake one's very existence - one does it because one simply "cannot do it otherwise."
  • Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
  • For so long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will in no way yield ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not for glory, nor riches, nor honour that we fight, but for Freedom, which no good man lays down but with his life.
  • Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
  • Freedom cannot be bestowed — it must be achieved.
    • Elbert Hubbard, in his essay on Booker T. Washington in Little Journeys For 1908, p. 21; Franklin D. Roosevelt later used this line on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation: "In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved."
  • If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
    • Jesus of Nazareth as quoted in John 8:31 (NIV)
    • Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
      • Jesus as quoted in John 8:31 (KJV)
  • What universities are saying by these codes, special protections, and double standards — to women, to blacks, to Hispanics, to gay and lesbian students — is, "You are too weak to live with freedom. You are too weak to live with the First Amendment." If someone tells you you are too weak to live with freedom, they have turned you into a child.
  • If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
  • It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
  • Democracy and freedom do not guarantee the millennium. No, we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
  • My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
  • Pro libertate"
  • Give a man a free hand and he’ll try to put it all over you.
    • Mae West, as "Frisco Doll" in Klondike Annie

[edit] Lyrics

  • Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
  • Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
    Mother earth will swallow you
    Lay your body down
  • I'M FREE! — I'm free,
    And freedom tastes of reality,
    I'm free — I'm free,
    An' I'm waiting for you to follow me.
  • Take my love, take my land
    Take me where I cannot stand
    I don't care, I'm still free
    You can't take the sky from me
  • Believe in all the good things you keep inside
    There is no freedom in life without freedom of mind
  • Where the mind is without fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
a famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore about freedom of expression

[edit] Unsourced

  • In a dictatorship one is more often sitting in the dock than standing up for rights.
  • The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
  • You are in control of your life. Don't ever forget that. You are what you are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you have made.
  • They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
  • It is better to die with a sword in your hands, than a chain over your wings.
  • If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
  • Freedom is participation in power
  • We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!
  • Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.
  • Freedom is not the power to do what one wants. Freedom is the power to do what is right.
  • The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
  • Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.
  • While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
  • Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
  • Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
  • You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
  • It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
  • Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.
  • To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.
  • I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
  • Man is free at the moment he wishes to be
  • The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
  • Before you seek one’s freedom, you must assume that any individual, in and of itself, has that quality called freedom, meaning that he can act according to his own free choice.
  • That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
  • Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.
  • America was neither founded, nor freed, by the well-behaved.
    • Semmes Luckett

[edit] A-M

  • A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, but he has no means to realize it other than through violence.
  • 'Eternal Vigilence is the Price of Liberty' used to mean we watched the government — not the other way around.
    • Bill Stewart
  • FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
    • George Orwell (In context; from the book nineteen-eighty-four -- Note: This is an excerpt from a book of fiction and does not represent the opinion of the author.)
  • Freedom is free of the need to be free.
  • Free your mind and your ass will follow. The kingdom of heaven is within.
  • No Dictator, No invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe, than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. -G'kar (fictional character, Babylon 5)
  • Free at last, free at last, Gawd Almighty, I'm free at last
    • Unknown
  • Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.
  • Freedom? Oh, freedom, well, that's just some people talking, your prison is walking through this world all alone.
  • Ελευθερία ή θάνατος (freedom or death)
  • Freedom - Responsibility = Anarchy, Responsibility - Freedom = Slavery, Freedom + Responsibility = Liberty
  • Hydames, you have not equally weighed each side in your advice to us. For you have tried the one which you advise, the other has remained untried by you. You know what it means to be a slave, but you have never yet tried freedom, to know whether it is sweet or not. For if you had tried it, you would have advised us to fight for it, not merely with spears, but also with axes.
    • Spartans Sperthia and Bulis to Persian satrap Hydarnes
  • Easy isn’t for the free. Easy is for the willfully confined. So how easy do you want it?
  • If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too.
  • Freedom is something that the human dream feeds, that none can explain and none cannot understand

[edit] N — Z

  • Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.
  • Свобода или смърт (freedom or death)
  • Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave.
  • The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.
  • This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
  • Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
  • Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.
  • Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. Don't bother us with politics, respond those who don't want to learn.
  • What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist
  • Without freedom, life is not worth living. --(Manuel Belgrano)
  • With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
    • Jean Luc Picard (fictional character, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
  • We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
  • You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
  • Freedom is the freedom to say that two and two make four.

[edit] Anonymous

  • Freedom is like air, you breathe it in and never think of it until it runs out.
  • To be alone is to be free.
  • There is no peace, there is no freedom
  • A Free man is one who has enslaved himself to his inner ideals.
  • Full freedom is chaos, full order is slavery.

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